Service Driven Society

I was listening to the Catalyst podcast and they were interviewing Reggie McNeal, author of Missional Renaissance. He said some things that really caught my ear and got me thinking.

My thoughts: We live in a very service driven society. We can pay someone to do our lawn care, we can pay someone to do our taxes or change our oil, etc. There’s nothing wrong with this at all, but what happens is we start to rely on the church to provide us with all of our faith. I sometimes hear people say “Man, I need to go to church,” when they should be saying “Man, I need God.” I also hear people say “Our church needs to reach out to my kids because they’re going down the wrong path.” We expect our churches to provide a service that we ultimately should be providing.

Jimmy Fallon last night was talking about some words that he hates like “manscaping” (when a man shaves his body hair strictly for aesthetic reasons) or the word “staycation” (like a vacation, but instead you stay home and do stuff). I don’t like the word “manscaping,” but I do like the word “staycation.” Pajjar hates it when I say that word because loves vacationing, honestly, I don’t mind vacationing, but I much prefer a staycation where I can get some stuff done around the home and see my friends and family. That to me is the ultimate use of a 3 day weekend. Granted I still owe her a honeymoon, but I’m working on that.

But if I could go on vacation, I would love to go to Atlanta for Catalyst ’09. There’s a killer lineup of speakers that I want hear like: Andy Staley, Louie Giglio, Rob Bell (a rare appearance outside from Mars Hills, Nooma, and his book/DVD tours), Chuck Swindol (best-selling author & founder of Insight for Living), Malcom Gladwell (business/leadership guru & author of Blink & Outliers), Tony Dungy (future HoF coach), Francis Chan, Josh Hamilton (if the Red Sox win the Wild Card), & many more.